Black hole theory suggests light is slowing (down)!

New Scientist ^ | 13:27 08 August 02 | NewScientist.com news service

[vannrox]

Black hole theory suggests light is slowing

13:27 08 August 02

Hazel Muir

One of Einstein's most dearly held concepts - that the speed of light is constant - is looking a little fragile. Physicists in Australia claim there is good reason to think the speed of light has slowed over time.

"Einstein would have absolutely hated this," said Paul Davies of Macquarie University in Sydney. "His entire theory of relativity was founded on the notion that the speed of light is an absolute fixed universal number."

The physicists' suggestion follows earlier measurements of a key quantity called the "fine structure constant". This quantity dictates how photons of light interact with particles such as electrons. Observations of the light from distant, superbright galaxies suggest that this "constant" was actually slightly smaller 10 billion years ago (New Scientist print edition, 11 May 2002).

Because the value of the fine structure constant depends on two quantities - the electron's charge (e) and the speed of light (c) - this implies that one of these two quantities has also changed. Either c has decreased over time, or e has increased.

Event horizon

Now Davies and his colleagues say the most likely answer is that c has decreased. They argue that if instead the charge of the electron could go up, then this would mean the event horizon of a black hole - the region from which light and matter cannot escape - would shrink over time. And that would violate one of the golden rules of physics, the second law of thermodynamics.

It is a very speculative suggestion, however, because the detailed physics of black holes are very poorly understood and totally untested. Davies himself admits the arguments are "only suggestive".

But if he is proved right and the speed of light has slowed, it would revolutionise physics. "If these results hold out, we need to start re-examining the very nature of space and time," said Davies.

If the speed of light in the early Universe was much higher than it is now, physicists would have to rethink many of their ideas, such as the theory of inflation, which says space expanded extremely rapidly in the first split second after the big bang.

Journal reference: Nature (vol 418, p 602)

13:27 08 August 02

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[vannrox]

I remember when I was being taught in elementary school how the speed of light was a constant barrier. And, that we could never be able to go faster than it. I remember thinking..."...that's not right...".

[berned]

If the speed of light was much faster at the beginning of the universe than it is now, wouldn't that mean that our calculation of the age of the universe is WAY off? (i.e. the universe is much younger than previously thought?)

[Salman]

If the speed of light was much faster at the beginning of the universe than it is now, wouldn't that mean that our calculation of the age of the universe is WAY off? (i.e. the universe is much younger than previously thought?)

Or taking it in the other direction, this still doesn't mean it's possible to accelerate faster than light. The implication is that eventually nothing can move as the speed of light approaches zero.

[mlo]

"His entire theory of relativity was founded on the notion that the speed of light is an absolute fixed universal number."

Yes, for all observers. It is not a statement that the speed of light has always been the same. This article's statements about Einstein are wrong.

[mlo]

I remember when I was being taught in elementary school how the speed of light was a constant barrier. And, that we could never be able to go faster than it. I remember thinking..."...that's not right...".

Our intuition doesn't always understand how the universe really works. Nothing has happened to change what your teacher told you.

[VadeRetro]

If the speed of light was much faster at the beginning of the universe than it is now, wouldn't that mean that our calculation of the age of the universe is WAY off? (i.e. the universe is much younger than previously thought?)

From the article:

Observations of the light from distant, superbright galaxies suggest that this "constant" was actually slightly smaller 10 billion years ago (New Scientist print edition, 11 May 2002).

Well, it's still at least ten billion years old, and if c has only lost a fraction of one percent in 10 billion years, it's hard to see how the universe can be WAY younger than previous estimantes would have it.

[TopQuark]

"Einstein would have absolutely hated this," It is alsways a pleasure when a mediocrity speaks on behalf of Einstein.

The fact is Einstein was a true thinker of unwavering intellectual honesty. He did not fully accept quantum mechanics but he certainly understood it and did not "hate" it.

[vannrox]

"...If the speed of light was much faster at the beginning of the universe than it is now, wouldn't that mean that our calculation of the age of the universe is WAY off? (i.e. the universe is much younger than previously thought?)..."


Indeed...
.
Yes. If, for instance there would be evidence for an inversely exponential decrease in the speed of light, then once we had an idea of the magnitude of the variables, it would be possible to track the speed as a function of other physical parameters. My guess is that time would NOT come into being, as I am a firm believer that the concept of time is but a human construct. But that the physical states of space and matter attributes, on the quantum level would play a role.

This is a very exciting development, but unless it fits into the eleven dimensional universe explaniaton, I am at a loss to understand it.

[Rockyrich]

which says space expanded extremely rapidly in the first split second after the big bang.

The "big bang" like evolution are still only theories. There is no scientific fact either of these occured.

[tictoc]

Have you visited www.crank.net?

They have an entire category called Einstein Was Wrong.

Most of the websites referenced there are so obviously loony, even a non-scientist like myself can see it.

Others are produced by people with engineering degrees and even physics Ph.D's, and in these cases it is impossible for me to determine why they are crackpots. For example Tom van Flandern.

[Billthedrill]

...the speed of light has slowed over time....

I know how it feels. Next thing you know the speed of light will be getting up in the middle of the night to take a pee...

[Entropy Squared]

When my son was 5 I taught him to say, "According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity nothing can exceed the speed of light," so he could dazzle adults with the statement. He didn't understand what it meant, but he quickly learned its dazzle power, coming from a five-year-old.

[Enemy Of The State]

self ping for later read

[BulletBrasDotNet]

We need to hear from Al Gore on this, since he invented light.

[artios]

There was another announcement last week about someone that had developed a technology to transmit data at 4x the speed of light. Now - don't flame me - it was an AP story.... I am not smart enough in physics to really know if it is a fraud or not.

[Age of Reason]

And that would violate one of the golden rules of physics, the second law of thermodynamics.

Well hey, maybe we need a new second law.

[TopQuark]

Thanks for the pointer: I've never heard of this one before.

A brief look makes me reach the same conclusion as you did. Pure waste of time.

Consider statemets such as this:

"More than an intuitive nonsense, Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, it would seem, legitimised a century of stupidity. Sound like a person with a great deal of ambition who has failed calculus in college.

Or this:

The physics that was taught in the 20th century was supposedly based on Einstein. In fact this is not the case, there was a conspiracy against Einstein and his theory was replaced by the physics establishment in 1925/ 1926 by a false theory that is still called Einstein’s theory. The conspiracy started before World War II, and was maintained after the war because of Cold War tensions of wanting to keep atomic secrets from the Russians, and after that it evolved into a doctrine that prevents certain experimental research being carried out that can prove the 1925 theory as being wrong.

Does it not look like not-so-mild case of paranoia?

[snudge]

Wait a minute... If a black hole can destoy the past, does the future exist?

[ZinGirl]

...the speed of light has slowed over time....

Actually, the universe just needs new batteries....(and since you posted the article, I guess you're just the person to do it!) try using a brand-name battery this time. ;-)

[mlo]

The "big bang" like evolution are still only theories. There is no scientific fact either of these occured.

You really need to read more.

[tictoc]

Does it not look like not-so-mild case of paranoia?

Indeed it does. However, not all cranks are so easily detected. Tom van Flandern appears to be quite sane and rational, and a regular scientist to boot. Yet the general relativity theorists dismiss him as utterly wrong-headed. I'll take their word over his because they are an overwhelming majority and they can't all be part of a vast conspiracy to suppress this man's findings. But I'm way past out of my depth in trying to form my own judgment.

[TopQuark]

I see what you mean: he is more subtle. However, he is still arguing agains a strawman. For instance:

Note that the gradient of a scalar field is a vector, not another scalar. But if the field source begins to move, does the field gradient point toward the instantaneous or retarded position of the source? That depends on whether the field updates or regenerates instantly or with delay. There is no such thing as a gloval gradient: it is a vector field, which means that at every point of the trajectory, there is a (different) vector. These vectors do not even live in the same space: at each point of the trajectory, a tangent vector space is attached. To say what he did is simply incorrect.

Now, given that at different points we have different vectors, the question does indeed arize as to which of these enter physical laws. That is a regular question in physics, but once a particular law is consistent with empirical observations, it is accepted as a working hypothesis.

The author speaks here in terms of college calculus. Had he taken a course in geometry, he would not make such a statement, I am sure.

Physics has an issue that math does not. It is his understanding of mathematics that creates a dissonance in his view.

Incidentally, I would not want to give an impression that I not welcome someone disagreeing with Einstein' theory. TO the contrary, I would welcome such questioning and find it exciting. What seems to be happening here is a misstatement of the theory, or mathematics, is argued against. That is at best, and at worst we have some really basket cases. Nevertheless, thank you again for pointing me to that site.

Best regards, TQ.

[Age of Reason]

The second law is one that will always stand and I'm not going to even bother going into the reasons why. It's like Louis Armstrong said about jazz, "If you've got to ask, you wouldn't understand the answer."

Now I'm even more suspicious about the inviolability of that second law.

[tictoc]

Thank you for your response, which unfortunately went over my head (although I'm sure it contained nothing but fairly elementary physical knowledge).

(Please don't feel that you should supply an even more simplified explanation; while at some point I would "get it", a couple of months later I will have forgotten and start pestering you all over again.)

Popular science books are a blessing and a curse at the same time. My bookshelf includes several that attempt to explain Einstein's theory of relativity (although mostly limited to special as opposed to general relativity) in lay terms. I work my way through these books, often re-reading a sentence or paragraph several times until I feel that I've understood.

In reality it can't be said that I truly understood it at all, otherwise I would be capable of independently detecting and refuting such erroneous presentations of van Flandern's.

Is it because I'm stupid? I guess it depends on how you define intelligence. Most young boys want to be astronauts or firemen when they grow up, I wanted to become a Nobel prize-winning physicist (yeah, funny). That was before I discovered that I have no talent for math.

I wonder if there is such a thing as an indicator of intelligence that is free from bias and preconceptions.

My two lines of work are translation and simultaneous conference interpreting. I find written translation to be immensely harder than interpreting. Probably I suffer from attention deficit disorder although it has not been diagnosed. Just finishing a translation job on time requires me to exercise tremendous powers of will and concentration, and I sincerely believe that a choir of angels should appear every time and blow a trumpet chorus in my praise.

Although my customers sometimes tell me they appreciate my work, no one ever expresses admiration. But when I'm interpreting at a conference, invariably one or several participants will walk up to me and say, "Oh, I'm completely in awe at what you guys do. How do you do it?"

I'll smile and say thank you. Should I tell them that it's not work but fun and enjoyment? That instead of feeling wrung out at the end of the day, I'm exhilarated and ten years younger? I never suffer from attention lapses or boredom when I'm in the booth.

But what some people seem to think is an incredible feat actually comes easy to me.

Maybe there is not one intelligence but many, unrelated ones.

[Age of Reason]

And I have always been most suspicious of the first law of thermodynamics.

[Jorge]

Black hole theory suggests light is slowing

This is depressing news.

[dogbyte12]

Any science wizbangs here? How does diffraction from dust alter light? If light had to go through semi transparent objects, wouldn't the light bouncing through them before passing, minutely slow it down? If our universe is more filled with junk than in it's infancy, couldn't that explain the discrepancy?

[hosepipe]

"The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense" - Tom Clancy

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing" - Werner von Braun

[PoorMuttly]

so...can I use this as an excuse for speeding ?

[JoeSixPack1]

The light didn't pass through it, it bounced around in it before it came out thus the speed was still constant

[dogbyte12]

but that is kinda my point. if we are measuring light traveling from tens of thousands of light years away, how are we adequately calculating in the amount of space dust it is passing through?

[aristeides]

If the speed of light varies over time, then, given the relativity of time and space, doesn't that mean that the speed of light also varies from one place to another?

[JoeSixPack1]

ok,, I misunderstood your question. Your equating a straight line measurement with a deflected path measurement.

My answer to that would be an assumption and incorrect.

[Navy Patriot]

No whizbang here, but your thought that light slows down when it contacts transparent-translucent matter is correct. It also speeds back up when it exits same. Fastest in perfect vacuum.

[NordP]

"We need to hear from Al Gore on this, since he invented light."

Wow, then his time serving under the Prince of Darkness must have been just horrible for him! (/sarcasm)

[Navy Patriot]

so...can I use this as an excuse for speeding ?

Cop's radar (laser) gun works at speed of light, if light goes slower you would appear to go faster, therefore you are innocent.

Only kidding, works on doppler shift of return pulse, lightspeed would not affect computation.

[vannrox]

YES Good Point.


If the speed of light varies over time...
Then...
Because time is but a human construct for the change of entropy in space,
That,
it varies as a function of location or space.
so...
IF so, then it must vary at different places.
Logic train chugging...
Further...if it varies at different locations...then
It must vary as a function of the attributes the the space it is in...
Or, to put it another way...
There must be elements in a given space that can alter the speed of light....

[PoorMuttly]

...but the Judge may believe it.

I mean...everybody loves a wise-guy...right?!

[apochromat]

Where would the energy from the slowing light go?

[apochromat]

How do I know that that light slowing down by itself doesn't violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

[apochromat]

Either c has decreased over time, or e has increased.

Maybe e absorbed some c.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

suggests light is slowing (down)!

whoa dude thats heavy how do they know that, maybe darkness is just getting faster

hey where did my bong go

[libsrscum]

Either c has decreased over time, or e has increased.

Maybe e absorbed some c.

i before e except after c.

Does that help?

[apochromat]

What's i, illegitimacy?

... and what about neighbor and weigh?

[apochromat]

Yes. You are truly a helpful soul.

[tortoise]

Well hey, maybe we need a new second law.

Actually, I don't see how this necessarily follows from this finding. There are a lot of other questionable and unstated assumptions that have to be made to get from here to there. Also, this seems to use a naive (quasi-Newtonian) interpretation of the second law, rather than the full expression of it (which is rarely brought up because it is ugly, makes the math complicated, and usually isn't necessary). *shrug*.

One of my favorite parts of science is that stuff always changes, although there IS slow convergence with time.

[apochromat]

If I was French, I would would say...

Vous êtes une âme utile vraiment.

[Dominic Harr]

There must be elements in a given space that can alter the speed of light....

Interesting. So if it's time itself that is variable?

Suppose the 'speed' of time is what has change? Isn't the speed of subatomic particles related to their temp? And it's known that the temp of the universe *has* decreased?

Therefore . . .